When she is caught in the backseat of a car with her older brother's best friend - Deanna Lambert's teenage life is changed forever. Struggling to overcome the lasting repercussions and the stifling role of "school slut," she longs to escape a life defined by her past. With subtle grace, complicated wisdom and striking emotion, The Story of a Girl reminds us of our human capacity for resilience, epiphany and redemption.
I don't really know how I feel about Story of a Girl. I really, REALLY liked Sara Zarr's book Sweethearts so I was hoping that I would love this one as well. Unfortunately I ended up not really caring for it. I did like several aspects of the book! But I just couldn't connect to the character of Deanna. And that was what really brought the book down.
Deanna was a difficult character for me to like. I totally understand that she has this terrible reputation that she never seems to be able to live down. But the real problem for me was that it never seemed like she actually TRIED to live it down. She just went on with her life, never really confronted her problems, and ultimately ended up cycling back into the same bad habits. The great thing was that by the end of the novel Deanna had confronted her issues. She was able to forgive, and move on. It was just difficult to have to wade through her so many hurtful mistakes to get there.
One character that I did like was Deanna's best friend Lee. She didn't care about Deanna's past and she was so supportive and forgiving towards Deanna even when Deanna didn't deserve it, which was quite often. Lee is the kind of friend every girl needs in her life.
And now I get to talk about Jason. Oh yes. I'm pretty much biased about him because he's half Asian like me (or my name for it: a halfie!) AND I always think the half Asian guys are the cutest ones. Hehe. PLUS there are practically no books with halfies in them so whenever I find one I have a happy freakout session and automatically the book becomes indubitably more amazing. But there's more that I liked about Jason than just the fact that he's half Japanese. I also loved how he would stand up for Deanna, especially when she would get harrassed by other guys. He was there for Deanna no matter what. Another thing I really liked was Jason's honesty throughout the novel, especially at the end.
Overall Story of a Girl was a interesting book about how one bad decision can shape someones life, for the better or for the worse. I had trouble connecting with the main character but I did like the overall message of the story. Forgive and move on. Don't allow past mistakes to define who you are. And ultimately forgive yourself for making those mistakes, and realize that you CAN strive to make better decisions in the future. There were also several other characters in the that I did think were awesome. I give Story of a Girl 3 and a half out of 5 ice cream cones!
Julia :)
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